Back-to-school season is when families and schools set expectations for the year ahead, including expectations for school tech policies.
Students use school-issued laptops and tablets, online learning platforms, smartphones and smartwatches, and increasingly artificial intelligence. Almost 90% of schools have adopted 1:1 laptop policies, while states and districts are also reconsidering how school-issued devices, personal phones, and AI tools should be used during the school day.
That makes the beginning of the school year an important time for parents to ask: Do I know my child’s school tech policies and how technology is actually being used?
You don’t need to be a technology or education policy expert. You just need to know what to look for, what questions to ask, and how to participate.
1. Review Your School’s Tech Policies
Start with your school and district websites, student handbooks, and acceptable-use agreements. Look for policies addressing:
- Student technology use
- Cell phones and personal devices
- School-issued laptops and tablets
- Student data privacy
- Internet filtering and monitoring
- Artificial intelligence
- Social media and digital communications
Then ask whether the written policy matches what happens in practice.
Questions parents can ask
- What are the school’s expectations for technology during the school day? Consider personal phones and smartwatches as well as school-issued devices, apps, websites, and AI tools.
- What safeguards are in place? Ask how devices and online platforms are filtered or monitored, how student data is protected, and whether those safeguards extend to devices students take home.
The Policy Circle’s Parent’s Guide to Protecting Children Online recommends reviewing school tech policies and asking teachers about the apps, websites, platforms, and devices students use.
2. Understand How Technology Is Used in the Classroom
A district policy doesn’t always show what a child’s typical school day looks like. Ask teachers and school leaders:
- How is technology being used to support learning? What devices, apps, websites, and online platforms do students regularly use? When are screens necessary, and when are they optional?
- How much screen time do students have? How is digital learning balanced with books, handwriting, discussion, hands-on activities, and face-to-face instruction?
- What are the expectations outside the classroom? How often does homework require a device or internet connection? Are school-issued devices expected to go home, and what alternatives are available?
These conversations can also help parents align classroom expectations with technology boundaries at home.
3. Ask About AI in Schools
Artificial intelligence deserves particular attention because both the technology and the policies surrounding it are changing quickly.
Start by asking:
- When is AI an appropriate learning tool, and when is its use considered academic dishonesty?
- Which AI tools may students use, and does the district have a written AI policy?
- How are students being taught to use AI responsibly? Ask about privacy, accuracy, bias, misinformation, critical thinking, and what information students should not share.
- How are teachers preparing for AI use? Ask about disclosure or citation of AI-generated work and how student work is evaluated when AI may have been used.
Read The Policy Circle’s AI in Education Policy Circle Insight to learn more about the opportunities and limits of AI in education.
4. Understand Your School’s Cell Phone Policy
Find out whether your child’s school permits phones during class, restricts them during instructional periods, or requires students to keep them stored throughout the school day.
Smartwatches, earbuds, tablets, and other connected devices may fall under the same policy or may be treated differently.
Consider asking:
- When can students access personal phones or smartwatches?
- How are the rules enforced?
- Are there exceptions for emergencies, health needs, or accommodations?
- How should parents contact their children during the school day?
- Does the policy apply consistently across classrooms and grade levels?
5. Talk With Your Child About Technology
School policies can’t anticipate every situation a child will encounter online.
Our Parent’s Guide recommends ongoing, age-appropriate conversations about children’s experiences with technology.
Try asking:
- How do you use technology during your school day?
- When does it help you learn, and when does it distract you?
- Which apps, websites, or AI tools do you use for school?
- What would you do if you saw something online that seemed inappropriate, unsafe, misleading, or untrue?
- What personal information should you avoid sharing online?
For older students, talk about AI, social media, online privacy, cyberbullying, misinformation, and the difference between using technology as a tool and relying on it to do their thinking.
The Talking to Tweens and Teens About Online Safety Guide is a helpful place to start.
6. Bring the Conversation Into Your Community
Once you understand how technology is being used, decide whether there’s an opportunity to engage. Parents don’t have to agree on every technology boundary to ask for clear policies, transparency, appropriate safeguards, and meaningful opportunities for input.
Consider inviting another parent to a PTO or school board meeting, asking for student tech policies to be included on an upcoming agenda, or using The Policy Circle’s Protecting Children Online Discussion Guide to host a conversation among parents, educators, and community members.
When raising a concern, focus on what is happening, why it concerns you, and what you would like to understand or see addressed.
7. Look Beyond Your School District
Some technology decisions are made locally. Others are increasingly being shaped at the state level. Find out whether your state is considering legislation involving:
- Cell phones in schools
- Student data privacy
- Digital literacy and online safety
- Artificial intelligence in education
- School-issued technology
The Policy Circle’s Protecting Children Online Brief explores different approaches policymakers are considering and provides resources for learning about your state.
Back-to-School Technology Checklist for Parents
Before your next school meeting:
- Review The Policy Circle’s Protecting Children Online Parent’s Guide and Brief.
- Find your school or district’s technology, cell phone, and AI policies.
- Ask which devices, apps, platforms, and websites your child will use.
- Ask how student data and privacy are protected.
- Talk with your child about how technology is used during the school day.
- Identify two or three questions to bring to teachers, administrators, or your school board.
Go Back to School Informed
You don’t need to have all the answers before you engage. Technology will continue to change. Staying informed and engaged gives parents and community members a voice in how it fits into the classroom.
This school year, go back to school informed and ready to engage.
